


I Hear Thunder In The Distance

by perfectlystill



Series: To All The People Who Loved Peter And MJ Before [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 07:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: “You kind of remind me of MJ,” Peter offers. Later, Gwen will think this was probably a big, flashing, neon warning sign.In which dating Peter Parker teaches Gwen three things: he takes his coffee with a gross amount of sugar, he might be in love with someone else, and he's definitely not telling her something important.





	I Hear Thunder In The Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I have never read a comic book, and I don't know anything about _Star Trek_! Thank you for your understanding. Title from The Knocks and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Love Me Like That."

Gwen transfers to Midtown her junior year and gets partnered with Peter Parker in physics lab.

It’s kind of like fate, except it’s actually just alphabetical order by last name. 

He’s smart, but he doesn’t do that thing all her lab partners at her old school used to do: pretend Gwen doesn’t want to get her hands dirty with the work of science, as if physics is animal dissection, and then expect her to handle the lab reports because they had “done all the work.” 

_Gross_.

Peter defers to her more often than not, and she can tell it’s because he knows the material already and doesn’t want to take away her learning opportunity. She rolls with it at first, thinking it’s kind of nice. But now he’s gnawing on his lip, staring at the directions in front of him with dark circles underneath his eyes. Gwen knows it doesn’t take five minutes to read five instructions. 

“I’m not stupid,” she says. 

Peter looks at her, eyes widening with panic and remorse.“I- I don’t think you’re--”

“Not to get all _Twilight_ on you, Peter, but I did this ring pendulum lab at camp over the summer.”

“Oh,” he exhales, running a hand through his hair. His hair is nice and wavy, and Gwen wipes her fingers on her jeans. “I’m sorry if you thought I thought that you’re-- well, I think you’re really smart.”

“I am. Thanks.” She smiles, kind and open, and he smiles back. Her heart does a flippy little thing it hasn’t done since before things ended with her last boyfriend. 

“You kind of remind me of MJ,” Peter offers.

Gwen huffs a laugh, pushing at her headband. “Okay?”

“She’s my friend,” he clarifies. “I think she’d get a kick out of you accusing me of sexism.”

Later, Gwen will think this was probably a big, flashing, neon warning sign. But in the moment she giggles and nudges her shoulder against his, saying: “Are you saying you’re sexist, or that you’ve so perfectly overcome society’s gender roles that you’re never sexist?”

Peter’s forehead wrinkles like he’s deep in thought and his mouth tilts with a small smile. “Neither?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

He’s still got wide, wide eyes like he’s terrified of saying the wrong thing around her, and she likes it. It’s cute. _He’s_ cute. “I just do my best, I guess.”

“Don’t we all.” She grins. “Now help me with this lab before Ms. Rodriguez yells at us for slacking.”

 

 

Peter starts flirting with her. 

He compliments her scarves and headbands, leaning toward her so their elbows brush on the table while she recounts picking the silk currently wrapped around her neck with her cousin in Bangladesh. 

“Aazmin is your favorite cousin, right?” he asks. 

Gwen mentioned her once in passing some time last week. She bites around her smile, but she can still feel the force of it in her cheeks. “Yeah.”

“Is it hard to stay in touch? With the time zones and everything?” 

“Kind of.” Gwen purposely brushes her arm against his, and she sees him glance down where their forearms are now lined up. She likes the sparks threatening to tickle goosebumps on the back of her neck or lift the little hairs on her arm with static electricity. She likes the genuine interest in his always exhausted eyes when he looks at her. “We Whatsapp. Sometimes, I like to ruin my sleep schedule during weekends talking to her.”

“That’s cool,” Peter says. “It’s awesome that you’re close to your family.”

The sincerity flutters in Gwen’s stomach. “Are you close with your family?”

“My Aunt May, I uh, I live with her. She’s --” He moves his arm, the one that was touching hers, and looks down at their lab station. “She’s the best person I know. She’s my-- Yeah.” He clears his throat.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. But you can if you want.” Peter doesn’t look up, so she reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing once. 

“It’s fine.” Peter glances at her, smile strained. “I’m gonna watch the video.” 

Gwen thinks she really ruined this fun, flirty thing they had going. She’s kind of pissed at herself, because Peter’s sweet, and cute, and the shirt he’s wearing today has a periodic table on it with the words _I wear this shirt periodically_ written underneath. 

But when Ms. Rodriguez flips up the light, reminding them about the chapter they’re supposed to read for tomorrow, Peter looks at her apologetically. “Lunch?” he asks.

“Yeah?” Gwen rolls her pencil between her thumb and forefinger. 

“You can sit with me-- us. Ned, MJ and me. If you want.” 

“Sure. I’d like that.”

 

 

“Hi guys,” Gwen says, waving a little before sitting across from a girl with unruly curls. 

“Ned, MJ, this is Gwen. Gwen, Ned and MJ.”

“Hey,” Ned says. “We have Spanish together, right?”

“Yeah, second period,” Gwen says. “Your accent is better than mine.”

Ned laughs, a hearty, warm sound. “Gracias, senorita.”

The girl -- MJ -- glances up from her book for the first time since Peter introduced her. “Ned can’t roll his R’s.”

“MJ, right?” Gwen asks, she picks up her fork to suppress the urge to hold her hand out across the table.

“Michelle,” she corrects, looking down at her book and pulling it closer. 

“MJ, come on,” Peter says. 

Michelle doesn’t glance up as she deliberately turns the page. 

“Michelle’s a pretty name,” Gwen offers. Ned lets out an airy whistle, and Gwen furrows her eyebrows, looking between Peter, Ned and Michelle. “What?”

Peter’s staring at the top of Michelle’s head like it’s a science equation that isn’t working out quite right. He shakes himself out of it. “Nothing.”

 

 

Gwen’s switching out books at her locker when Peter comes to a skid next to her. 

“Hey, Gwen.” He twists the string of his backpack around and around.

“Hey.”

“Sorry about MJ. She’s not normally like--” He cuts himself off, staring at the ground. He has nice eyelashes. “Well, I guess sometimes she _is_ like that.” He looks up at Gwen again, and she likes the pink tinting the apples of his cheeks. “But she’s really cool. I promise.”

“It’s okay. I had fun. Even if you and Ned prefer Kirk over Picard,” she ribs, closing her locker and readjusting her books against her hip. 

“Ugh,” Peter groans. “You don’t understand. Kirk is more personable and--”

“The bell rings in three minutes.” Gwen smiles, tilting her head and allowing Peter to walk with her to history. 

“Sorry, yeah. I was uh, I was wondering if you’d want to maybe discuss this more with me over dinner some time?” The tips of Peter’s ears are red now, and his voice wavers somewhere between confident and completely terrified. 

Gwen doesn’t hesitate when cute boys she likes ask her out: “I’d like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Peter’s finger tangles in his backpack string. “Cool. Awesome. I’ll text you?”

“Sure.”

Gwen bites down around her grin when she turns into her class, and she can’t tamper it even when Mr. Johnson hands out a pop quiz. 

 

 

Gwen’s been out with Peter twice: dinner at a Thai place followed by a romcom that she teased him about picking because, “Isn’t it sexist to assume I wanted to see this just because I’m a girl?”

Peter had sputtered, hand kinetic with awkward energy, accidentally brushing against hers. Gwen wished he would have held it. “No-- uh. I-- I wanted to see it? Isn’t it sexist that you assumed I didn’t want to see it?”

“I was kidding,” Gwen laughs, but she keeps it light and airy. “I wanted to see it, too.”

The second is coffee and pastries at a little shop. Gwen learns that Peter pours about a pound of sugar into his coffee and that crumbs stick to his chapped lips. She learns that she really wants to lean across the small table and kiss him to taste the cinnamon sugar. She learns Aunt May is the only family he has left, and she reaches across the table, squeezing his hand as he emphasizes that May’s the most amazing woman he knows. She tells him her mom passed away when she was thirteen, and Peter squeezes her hand back. 

He drops her off at home just as the sun is setting, turning the sky rose and lilac. He shoves his hands in his pockets as she stands on her stoop. “Thanks for going out with me.”

“Thanks for asking.”

He chews on his lip. “I had a really good time.”

“Me too.” Gwen’s stomach tumbles, and she bounces up once on the balls of her feet. “Thanks for the coffee and the scone.”

“Thanks for not teasing me about wanting to pay.”

Gwen grins and bounces up on her feet one more time, hands resting featherlight on Peter’s shoulders simply to help keep her balance. “Guess my father was wrong. Chivalry isn’t dead,” she laughs. 

She watches Peter’s adam’s apple bob. She likes him so much her insides feel like starlight.

Peter’s hands are still in his pockets when she kisses him, soft and gentle. 

But he kisses her back, lips dry and warm and delightfully wonderful against her own. 

She even does that stupid, cliche thing where she leans back against her closed front door, smile splitting her face in half.

Peter texts her asking if she wants to be his girlfriend. 

_Only if you ask me in person_.

He does. 

 

 

Gwen jumps when she turns from her locker to find Michelle standing there. 

“Oh, hi.”

Gwen sits with Peter, Michelle and Ned at lunch every day. Gwen never asked Peter if Michelle hated her, but she thought about it a lot during the first week. 

Peter was right; Michelle takes time to come around to people. Michelle loans Gwen her copy of _Another Brooklyn_ when Michelle trades it out for _East of Eden_. She asks what Gwen thought when she returns it two weeks later. Michelle rolls her eyes at Gwen when Ned and Peter mention Tony Stark, because Gwen doesn’t trust that guy, either. Last week, Michelle agreed that Picard was more inclined toward diplomacy than Kirk, even though she thinks these debates are “stupid and reductive. Janeway is the best captain, anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Michelle says. She doesn’t look very sorry or very nervous, but she tucks a stray curl behind her ear. 

Gwen tilts her head. “For what?”

“For being rude to you the first week you sat with the losers and me. And for calling you an idiot for liking _Wuthering Heights_.” 

Gwen forgot about that. “Oh, yeah, okay. Apology accepted.”

Michelle looks past Gwen, mouth pressed into a thin frown. “You can call me MJ, if you want.”

“Do you want me to?” Gwen asks.

Michelle makes eye contact, and Gwen can feel some wall crumbling. Michelle smiles. “Yeah.” She shrugs, nonchalant. “We’re friends.”

 

 

“We are not watching _Star Wars_ ,” MJ says, arms crossed over her chest as she leans against the kitchen counter. 

“But we haven’t watched the original trilogy with Gwen yet,” Ned says. He widens his eyes and holds his palms up as if to say _Duh_ , but he can’t say _Duh_ because MJ would slap him across the back of his head just hard enough for it to sting. 

Gwen’s seen it happen twice. 

“I kind of like _Star Wars_ ,” Gwen says. She takes a sip of soda, and the microwave beeps. 

“See, MJ, she _likes Star Wars_ ,” Peter repeats, triumphant and smug as he opens the microwave, pulling the popcorn bag apart with too much force. It rips and some of the pieces fall onto the floor. 

MJ huffs. “I’m starting to think you nerds have never seen a decent film.”

Ned’s mouth drops open. Peter looks up with wide, horrified eyes from where he’s bent down to scoop up the kernels on the kitchen tile. And Gwen, squatting next to him to help, laughs. 

“Oh, shut up--” MJ starts.

“I didn’t say anything,” Peter says, voice tight and high. 

“Princess Leia is a badass, but it was never my goal to have the scripts memorized. There’s enough space in my head for it, but I’m starting to think it’s why you can’t remember which journals published _The Waste Land_.’”

Peter swallows. “ _Dial_ and, um, _The Criterion_?”

MJ’s mouth twitches. “Glad you can remember information from last week.”

Peter stands up and tosses a handful of popcorn into the trash bin. “I do pay attention in Decathlon, you know.”

MJ eyes Peter, halfway between skeptical and fond. “Yeah, I know. When you bother to show up.” 

He glances at Gwen, and then back at MJ in an almost pleading manner. “Mr. Stark-- My internship--”

MJ pushes off the counter, dumps the torn open popcorn bag into the large, plastic bowl beneath the microwave, and heads toward the living room. “We know, Peter. Stop bragging.” She catches Gwen’s eye as she turns, shaking her head like the two of them share some secret, probably about Tony Stark and capitalism and America, but Gwen doesn’t quite understand what’s happening. 

Ned pops open a can of orange soda and plops into the armchair Gwen knows he always claims. 

“I’m picking a movie,” MJ says, snatching the remote from the coffee table and flicking from the DVD player to Netflix. 

“Sci-Fi, please,” Ned requests around a mouthful of popcorn.

Gwen sits on one side of the sofa and Peter sits next to her. She likes the warm press of his thigh against hers, and she likes how he holds open his bag of Skittles, offering some. MJ’s blocking half her view of the screen, but Gwen suggests: “ _Ex Machina_ is good.”

MJ hums, scrolls back, and clicks play. 

“You’ve picked this before,” Peter says, delighted and not at all sounding like he means _checkmate_. He grins up at MJ. 

“Alicia Vikander is hot,” Ned mumbles, swinging his legs over the side of his armchair and turning toward the television. He stretches and flicks the living room light off. 

“What Ned said,” MJ answers. She grabs the bowl of popcorn and flops down, back against the sofa’s opposite armrest. MJ swings her feet up, knees bent.

“Sonoya Mizuno and Oscar Isaac are hot, too,” Peter says. 

Gwen sees MJ poke at Peter’s thigh with her toes. “Quiet, the movie’s starting,” MJ whispers. “Agreed. About Sonoya.”

Peter flicks at MJ’s foot before holding the small bag of skittles out to her. Gwen watches from her periphery as MJ shakes her head, throwing a piece of popcorn at Peter’s face. 

Oscar and Sonoya are dancing when Gwen notices one of MJ’s feet is now in Peter’s lap, notices that Peter is … giving her a foot massage? Gwen scrunches her face.

She flexes her own feet in her socks and swallows. Her cheeks feel hot, and she frowns, watching Peter’s thumb brush back and forth over the top of MJ’s foot. Gwen looks at MJ, left knee still bent. It looks like her left toes might be buried underneath Peter’s thigh. She set the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table at some point, and her elbow rests on the sofa’s arm as she looks at the screen. Her face is blank, neutral, as she watches the film, but she looks frozen, almost. Like she’s not breathing. 

Gwen bites her lip, and she feels like she’s not breathing, either. 

It’s weird. And uncomfortable. 

She likes MJ. They read _Pride and Prejudice_ together. She helped MJ with a problem she had with her own physics lab because “Peter’s not answering because he’s rude.” MJ offered Gwen her pudding cup along with a pad when Gwen got her period last month. They’re friends, and Gwen really likes her. 

But she doesn’t like Michelle’s foot in her boyfriend’s lap. She doesn’t like her boyfriend’s hand kneading against the arch of Michelle’s foot. And she doesn’t like the thought nagging at the back of her head that MJ wouldn’t stick her foot in Ned’s lap.

Gwen half-watches the rest of the movie, shoulders tense and throat dry, mind whirring and wondering if she missed something more than MJ’s earlier, specific thought on Tony Stark. 

 

 

“Am I overreacting?” Gwen whispers to Aazmin, like it’s an embarrassing secret and she’s revealing more about her own insecurities than anything else. She called at two in the morning for a reason: to keep her confession hidden to the shadowy, dark parts of night when it’s almost like it didn’t happen at all. 

“No?” Aazmin doesn’t whisper. Gwen flinches, staring at her bedroom ceiling. “That’s really weird.”

“Yeah. I just-- they’re friends. I don’t want to overstep, you know?”

“Asking Peter not to give anybody else a foot massage is not overstepping, Gwen.”

“I guess…” 

“You guess?” Gwen can practically see Aazmin’s eyebrows raised to her hairline. 

“If he was giving his aunt a foot massage I don’t know that I’d feel weird.”

“Okay, but this MJ girl isn’t his aunt.” 

Gwen came home from Peter’s and movie night a little over 24 hours ago, headache pulsing behind her temples. Between homework and thinking about it, she’s now wasted her entire Saturday. 

She thought about the flat way MJ had said, “She can’t join Decathlon, Peter,” when Gwen had intended to wait in the library until the meeting was over so she and Peter could fill out the study guide for their physics midterm together. She thought about MJ’s eyes flicking up from her books at lunch to look at Peter whenever he laughed at something Gwen said. She thought about the tiny smile on MJ’s face when Peter leaned toward her across the lunch table, saying: “Sansa’s the best!” She thought about the time MJ accidentally kicked her under the table and said, “Sorry, that was intended for Peter’s stupid ass.” She thought about the high, raspy breathlessness with which Michelle had said: “Totally better than _Star Wars_ ,” when _Ex Machina_ was over, pulling her foot away from Peter just as Ned flipped the light.

“I think she’s in love with him.”

“She what?!” Aazmin shrieks. 

Gwen closes her eyes and rolls toward her bedroom door. “She likes him, I think.”

“Okay, well...” Aazmin pauses. Gwen knows she’s collecting herself. “Tell Little Miss Footsie to stop hitting on Peter, then.”

“I don’t think that’s what she’s doing.” Gwen did a lot of thinking, and she really, honestly thinks MJ is her friend. She _is_. “They’re friends. I trust her. I trust him.”

Aazmin sighs like Gwen is an idiot. Gwen rolls her eyes. Aazmin is the one who lost her mom’s bracelet at the shops last summer even though she was told she wasn’t allowed to wear it. “You can still ask Peter not to _rub her foot_ , Gwen.” 

She says it like … sexual. 

_Gross_.

Gwen scrunches her nose. “Okay.”

“I just mean, if he’s really as good of a guy as you say he is, he’ll understand. He’ll care that you’re upset.”

“Okay.” Gwen rubs at her aching eyes. “You’re right. Thanks.”

 

 

When she whispers the request to Peter in a small corner of a practically empty hallway before homeroom on Monday, heart pounding against her ribs and eyes steadily on his, Peter’s own eyes widen, and he grabs her hand, squeezing. 

“Sorry. I-- I didn’t realize.” Peter shakes his head. Flushed down to his neck. The hand not holding hers makes a mess of his hair. Genuine. Sincere. Regretful. She likes him so, so much. Gwen thinks she could love him. He repeats: “I’m so sorry. Yeah, I can--” He clears his throat. “I won’t. Anymore.”

 

 

He tells MJ. 

Gwen knows he tells MJ because she doesn’t show up to lunch, and when Gwen approaches her in the hallway after school, MJ looks at Gwen’s forehead and shifts on her feet: “I had to meet with Mrs. Kalb about my AP Lit. essay.”

“How’d it go?”

“I’m the next Toni Morrison.” 

Gwen nods. “Cool.”

She sees MJ’s aborted eye roll. “I have to--” Michelle points her thumb behind her. “But I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah.” She can feel how uncomfortable MJ is standing in front of her, and it makes her feel uncomfortable, too. “We should find a time to read _Persuasion_ soon.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, well.” Gwen swallows. “See you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here.”

MJ disappears down the hallway, and Gwen realizes she went back in the direction she came.

 

 

MJ stops sitting with them at lunch. 

The first few days, Peter or Ned offer Gwen her various excuses: she’s not feeling well and went to the nurse’s office, she’s working on her physics lab with Betty, she needs to finish her art project. 

Then, they stop giving her excuses, and Gwen stops asking. 

Gwen misses MJ when Peter and Ned start talking about LEGOs. She misses MJ when she starts reading _Persuasion_ by herself. She misses her when she sees MJ duck her head and turn around in the hallway to avoid her. Gwen misses her when she responds to a text asking for clarification on the physics homework: _you’re better at science than me_.

Ned looks like he misses MJ whenever he makes some crack at Peter’s expense and glances toward her old seat, like he’s waiting for her to raise an eyebrow at him or snort in agreement. 

Peter’s eyes drift to the empty spot often, frustration in the wrinkle of his brow. 

Gwen reaches for his hand and smiles softly at him. 

He blinks and shakes his head, compliments her earrings. 

His eyes don’t stop drifting. 

 

 

“This Friday’s movie night, right?” Gwen asks.

Ned and Peter hesitate, looking at each other with jumping eyebrows. There’s some sort of conversation happening, and then Ned throws his hands in the air. “Just tell her.”

“Tell me what?” Gwen frowns.

Peter glares at Ned and clears his throat. “I have internship stuff this Friday.”

“Oh. Okay.” Gwen takes a sip from her milk carton. “I can do Saturday. My dad won’t let me go out on Sunday, though. School night and all that.”

The boys have another silent conversation. 

“Saturday sounds good.” Peter smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

 

 

Ned and Peter are in the kitchen with May making popcorn and putting together the hor d'oeuvres May insisted on.

MJ sits on one end of the sofa, flipping through a book on neurosurgery. Gwen sits on the other, absently scrolling through her phone, chewing on her lip, and thinking about how MJ hasn’t spoken to her in a month. 

“Are we friends?” Gwen asks. 

“Yeah,” MJ says. It’s an attempt at bored, but Gwen hears the barely there crack in the word.

The oven timer beeps. May laughs in the kitchen. MJ slams her books shut and sets it on the coffee table. 

“It’s giving me a headache.”

“You didn’t have to start eating lunch somewhere else,” Gwen whispers. She clears her throat. “Peter and Ned only read comic books, and the other day they tried to convince me that _Sleepless in Seattle_ is better than _You’ve Got Mail_.”

MJ eyes her, and there’s a sliver of vulnerability peaking through. All she says is: “The librarians are really starting to warm up to me, and the influence I’ll have in book purchases if I can keep it up will be unparalleled, so.”

 

 

Peter is a good boyfriend. 

Really. 

Gwen’s dad likes Peter when he comes over for dinner and insists on helping with the dishes. He makes her laugh, and they both get A’s in physics. Sometimes when he kisses her, Gwen feels it curl warmly in her stomach, her entire body tingling. It leaves a glow on her skin for hours. 

Whenever he cancels their dates, he texts her. Sometimes a few hours beforehand, sometimes right when they’re supposed to meet, and sometimes a little late. It’s frustrating, and it becomes even more frustrating when it’s hot and sticky at the end of June. She watches a romcom she didn’t even care about alone, leaving the theater with a lack of cancellation or apology text to show for it. 

Gwen goes to Peter’s after. It’s almost 11, and her dad will absolutely kill her if she isn’t home by midnight. 

May answers the door, eyes tinged in red underneath her glasses. “Hey, hun.” 

“Hi.” May pulls Gwen into a hug. “Is Peter home?”

“I think he’s in his room.”

Gwen almost hits the hallway light when May tells her it’s okay, but Peter’s door opens a smidge and her palm drops from the switch. Michelle slips out, closing the door softly behind her. She freezes when she turns and sees Gwen. There are dark circles underneath her dark, drooping eyes. It looks like there’s blood on the collar of her T-shirt. She blinks.

“Hey,” Gwen breathes. 

Michelle’s hands tremor before she shoves them into her short pockets. “He’s not feeling well, but I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

“Are you--”

“Night, Gwen.” Michelle brushes past her.

Gwen turns and watches Michelle and May with their heads ducked together, whispering things she can’t hear.

She takes a deep breath, steeling herself for something other than yelling at Peter for ditching her three days before she flies to Bangladesh for a month. 

Peter doesn’t shift when she opens the door, so Gwen waits for her eyes to adjust to the dark before approaching. She sits on the edge of his bed. His breathing is shallow, and there’s a bandage on the left side of his forehead, brushing against his hairline.

Gwen brushes her hand against the non-bandaged patch of his forehead. He’s clammy. She cards a hand through his hair. Any fight she had left dissipates. She might be angry with him later, but right now she just … loves him. 

She loves him. 

She smooths a curl off his forehead. 

Peter mumbles, “I’m fine, MJ. You can sleep on the top bunk if you’re too stubborn to leave.”

Something catches in Gwen’s throat. It’s not suspicion, and it might be jealousy, but it feels deeper than that. There are parts of Peter he shares with other people and not her -- Ned, who’s in Atlantic City for the weekend with his family; May, the most important person in his life; probably Tony Stark, the asshole; and Michelle. He trusts her with parts of himself he refuses to trust Gwen with. 

It hurts. 

She swallows it down. 

“Not MJ,” she whispers.

Peter’s eyes flutter open and his mouth tilts up in a smile. It looks like it takes some effort. “Gwen. Hey, how’re-- Oh. We had a date, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I-- Something happened.”

“It’s okay,” she says. 

Right now, it’s the truth. Tomorrow morning the sun might shine on the problems Gwen has with it, but right now she leans down and kisses his forehead. “Get some sleep. Call me tomorrow.”

“I will. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

 

 

Peter Whatsapps Gwen _good morning!_ almost every day she’s in Bangladesh, and her heart flutters every time. The first day he misses, nine days into her trip, Gwen Whatsapps _goodnight_ before drifting to sleep. He doesn’t respond until the next morning, asking how her day was and if Aazmin admitted to cheating at rummy -- of course not. But Gwen knows she did, with the same certainty that she knows Peter is hiding something important from her. 

Gwen loves spending time with her family, teasing Aazmin about her crush, and eating her aunt’s aloo potol posto. Nobody else’s even compares; nobody else’s version comes _close_. Aazmin says her mom has a secret ingredient or technique that she’ll probably take to the grave. 

But Gwen misses Ned chasing her around Peter’s living room with whatever robot he’s currently working on. She misses Peter tucking her hair behind her ear before he kisses her, and she misses that bagel place she and her dad treat themselves to on Sunday mornings, misses spending hours walking aimlessly through Central Park. 

Stepping off the plane in August, hit with a wall of humidity, she finds she can’t be upset about anything, even the smell that’s pure New York and mostly garbage. 

Peter takes her for ice cream, and he tastes even better than she remembered, especially mixed with the taste of the cool pistachio flavor still melting on her tongue. 

They kiss on his couch, after. May’s still at work, and Gwen runs her hand under his shirt. He flinches away. Gwen feels her face go hot in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s not you.” Peter tugs his shirt down, but Gwen is already pushing off him, so she sees the bruise. 

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” He scooches back and swings his legs so his feet touch the ground. 

Gwen narrows her eyes, reaching behind her head to tighten the ponytail he’d loosened with his hands. “It’s not nothing. I saw it.”

“Gwen-- It’s really-- It’s not--”

She lunges forward, tugging his shirt up. There’s a purple-yellow bruise skating across the entire left side of his stomach, over his abs and disappearing underneath his basketball shorts. She reels back, blinking away tears. “That’s not, _nothing_ , Peter.”

He sighs, peeling her hand away. She pulls her palm from his like his touch burns. “I’m fine.”

“How’d you get it?” 

“I tried skateboarding?” He’s looking at her, but his eyes skitter over her face like he can’t hold her gaze for too long. “I fell. It’s-- I’m fine. It’s healing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” 

“Gwen, I--” He scrapes his hands over his face before making eye contact, pleading: “I promise I’m okay. Believe me. I’ll be fine.”

A wet lump forms in her throat. “Why won’t you tell me the truth?”

“I--I _can’t_.” Peter’s eyes are wet. 

“You _can_. You don’t want to. You don’t trust me with it. You-- You trust Ned with it.” A beat. Gwen tries to blink back tears, but it backfires and causes one to fall. She bats at her check, the betrayal of her body. “You trust Michelle with it.”

Peter’s face flashes between surprise and confusion. She watches his jaw work. And then: “I’m trying to protect you.”

“Oh, fuck off.” She pushes up from the sofa, readjusting her tank top strap and grabbing her wristlet. “I’m trying to be patient, Peter. But you make it so hard sometimes.”

He nods like he understands. She’s sure he doesn’t. “I know. I’m sorry. I-- I-- I don’t know what to say, Gwen.”

She clamps down on: “ _The Truth_.” 

 

 

When the school year starts, Peter stops showing up to lunch every day. The first week of school, he’s just gone on Thursday, mumbling something about trying to rejoin Robotics Club before pressing a soft kiss to Gwen’s temple. She heads to the cafeteria to sit across from Ned and listen to him tell her all about his trip to Vegas and how he couldn’t gamble, but it was still “freaking awesome, dude!”

Then, it becomes more habitual. 

Ned’s like … actually in Robotics Club, so it’s weird. 

At the beginning of October, Ned’s out with the flu, and Gwen finds herself alone at their lunch table. She glances around. Gwen has friends. She had a sleepover with Cindy and Betty two weekends ago where they drank some wine Betty sneaked from her dad and talked about which Avenger is the hottest. She’s helping plan the Homecoming dance, and everyone on the committee is awesome. They’re going out to dinner Friday to decompress from the fact that the school board is absurdly strict and in their business all the time. 

She could even go to the library and see if Michelle would get up and walk away if Gwen sat down across from her. They’re not-- they’ve never quite recovered from Gwen realizing Michelle’s in love with Peter. Gwen knowing seems to make Michelle’s skin crawl. She won’t begrudge her decision to pull away and only make polite small talk when they both happen to show up for movie night, but Gwen doesn’t like it. Sometimes some idiot says something so stupid in her English class, and the desire to tell Michelle about it pulses painfully before she realizes she can’t. 

Before Gwen makes a choice, Flash slides into the seat across from her, cracking his knuckles. He folds his hands across the table. “Miss Stacy.”

“Flash.” She rolls her eyes, but it’s not in annoyance. Flash is nice to her, even if he’s a dick to Peter. “You wanna go over our genetics lab?”

“Nah. You wanna tell me why you’re still dating Parker?”

Gwen narrows her eyes. “None of your business.”

“I guess it’s none of my business that he--” Flash pauses and shakes his head. “Nevermind. You’re right. He’ll mess it up himself.” His face is too soft and sympathetic. He gets up, and any kindness is replaced as he motions up and down his body: “If you ever want an upgrade I’m right here, baby.” 

Gwen ignores him and opts to finish her math homework. When she jots down the last decimal and looks up, she catches Flash glancing at her. There’s still 15 minutes left of lunch, and she wants to know what Flash knows about Peter that she doesn’t. 

She walks over to his table of suck-ups and possible friends. “What’s none of your business?” she asks. 

He blinks, briefly confused, and then hesitates. He looks around the table, and then tilts his head back to look at where she’s standing with her books against her hip. He’s worried. She can tell, because he crooks his finger, telling her to lean down. “He knows Ned’s out today.” A too long pause as he debates, and then: “MJ eats in the library.”

“I know,” she chokes out.

Flash shrugs. He says, too loud, maybe on accident and maybe on purpose, “Of all the days to choose her instead of you, doing it today was a real Penis Parker move.”

Gwen inhales, sharply and too shallow. It feels like a stab in the center of her chest. Her face feels hot as she turns sharply on her heels.

 

 

Gwen finds Peter and Michelle at a table in the back of the library. Michelle’s head is buried in a book, mouth twisting the way Gwen remembers meaning she’s not secretly paying attention and won’t chime in with a quip. Peter scribbles something in a notebook, a curl falling in front of his eyes. He’s beautiful. Gwen loves him.

Gwen watches him look up at Michelle, kick her shin underneath the table and push a bag of baby carrots toward her. There’s a ghost of a smile on Michelle’s face as she reaches out and takes one. She bites it in half, chewing exaggerated, and ducks back down to her reading. 

Gwen watches Peter watch her with so much wonder and awe, his smile gentle and pleased. He takes a devastatingly long time to look down at his notebook.

She hates him.

She hates that he’d rather spend lunch sitting across from Michelle in the library than with her. She hates that he probably doesn’t even realize it: that he likes Michelle, or that Michelle is in love with him, or that Gwen is in love with him, too. 

She exhales. 

She power walks to the girls' bathroom to lock herself in a stall and cry for ten minutes until the bell rings. Gwen splashes her face with water. Her eyes don’t look too red, thank god. 

Peter presses a featherlight kiss to her mouth when he sits next to her in AP Chemistry. “How was lunch?”

Gwen swallows. “Fine.”

Peter tilts his head, eyes wide and sincere and imploring. “Are you okay?”

She hates him, she hates him, she hates him. “Yeah.” Gwen bites her lip. “Want to get coffee after school?”

Peter studies her, and he doesn’t look satisfied. “Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

Gwen has to break up with him. But he has kind eyes, and soft hair, and she knows he cares about her A Lot. And she loves him. She loves him. She _loves_ him. 

 

 

She gives herself two weeks of denial. Two weeks to appreciate every brush of his palm against her skin, every fond laugh she pulls out of him, every overwhelmingly genuine compliment, every bite of a kiss against her bottom lip. 

It probably makes it worse. 

He fights her on it when she dumps him. 

It’s annoying as hell. 

“Why?” he asks. 

“Because I can’t do this anymore, Peter. It’s too hard.”

His eyes search hers, and when he asks, it’s sincere: “What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

Peter flounders, opening and closing his mouth just barely, half-formed thoughts coming out as huffs of breath. Gwen imagines him considering an explanation for the new cut along his collarbone that she knows will fade without a scar. She imagines him apologizing for missing their date on Friday. She imagines him asking if this is about Michelle, the half-lies he’d tell if she said the half-true _Yes_. He settles on: “Is there anything? Anything at all?”

“No.” A beat. “You could tell me the truth,” Gwen says, calling his bluff.

He rubs his lips together, his adam's apple bobs as he gulps and nods. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Peter stands, grabs her wrist and swipes his thumb over her pulse point. Leaning down, he brushes his mouth against her cheek. “Thank you for trying.”

“I tried really, really hard,” she says, half-cry and half-laugh. 

“You’re a saint.” His smile is wet, sad. 

“Tell me about it.” She squeezes his fingers, doesn’t tell him she loves him. 

Her front door is half-closed behind him when she pulls it open and calls, embarrassingly wrecked, stopping a sob that was already halfway out before she thought about school tomorrow: “Don’t-- don’t come back to the cafeteria with her right away, okay?”

Peter’s confusion lasts a second before he rubs at the back of his neck, nods and exhales: “Yeah. Like I said: Anything at all.”


End file.
